Avery, Mallory and Caldwell, Jane and Schunn, Christian and Wolfe, Katherine
(2021)
Maybe the Issue is not Who Economists Are, but What
Economics Is and How it’s Taught: Changing Course
Content and Structure to Improve Retention of Women in
Undergraduate Economics.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Economics continues to struggle with gender representation throughout the education pipeline. One reason that has been highlighted for this problem is the presentation of economics in introductory courses. In contrast to prior interventions that were primarily messaging centered around “who” economists are (e.g., nudging messages, instructor gender), we tested changing the content of the introductory courses’ recitation sections, or “what” economics is, by implementing meaningful applied problems and structured groupwork to change perceptions about the nature of economics. Using institutional data of 8,727 students we find that, compared to historical baselines, the intervention improved grades overall, eliminated underperformance by women in grades (particularly in Macro), and greatly reduced the gap by gender in likelihood of continuing on to Intermediate economics. These effects are evidence that the content of introductory economics courses, not just the messaging around the gender of economists.
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